The
internet scares the willies out of the Chinese Communist Party. As a result, they have devoted tremendous
resources to censoring underground journalist-bloggers. Yet, their biggest
challenge is not technological, but the sheer size of China’s discontented
population. Huge numbers of average
Chinese citizens have turned to the web as a source of unvarnished news and a
means of exposing official corruption.
Stephen Maing follows two very different but very independent bloggers
in High Tech, Low Life, the best
non-music related documentary screening at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.
Twenty-seven
year-old Zhou Shuguang, better known as Zola, will not deny he likes to get
attention online. Posting candid photos
of himself is part of his shtick.
Whether he stirs up positive or negative comments hardly matters to
him. It would be easy for some to
dismiss the vegetable hawker, until he breaks the story of a middle school
girl, whose rape and murder, allegedly at the hands of a local official’s son, was
covered up by the authorities.
While
Zola largely fits the merry prankster revolutionary template, Zhang Shihe,
a.k.a. Tiger Temple, is more akin to traditional anti-Communist
dissidents. The son of a prominent Party
leader purged during the Cultural Revolution, Tiger Temple has witnessed
Communist oppression up close and personal throughout his life.
A
more reflective blogger, Tiger Temple has documented the destruction of small
provincial communities by rampant unchecked pollution, including the illegal
dumping of raw human sewage. Not just
raking the muck (and foul muck it is), Tiger Temple helps small overwhelmed
village councils draft complaints and package NGO presentations. Frankly, it is a leadership role that makes
Tiger Temple a serious threat to the authorities.
While
not as extreme as the circumstances facing dissident artist Ai Weiwei, both
bloggers find themselves on the business end of Communist harassment as the
film progresses. Obviously, these are
disturbing developments, particularly for Tiger Temple, but it clearly
indicates Maing chose his POV-figures wisely.
By
documenting the bloggers’ work, Maing has produced an expose of the pervasive
graft throughout all levels of Chinese government by osmosis. It is also a profile of courageous
truth-tellers (again, especially so in Tiger Temple’s case). If anything, the film might be slightly out of
balance, seemingly granting more time to the admittedly attention-seeking Zola
than Tiger Temple, who radiates hard-earned wisdom and gravitas.
